As the founder of one of the few Indian startups to work with genetics and genomic study, Anu Acharya’s entry into the field was serendipitous. It took her a while to get to where she is now, but the journey was interspersed with a lot of learning and plenty of exciting tech. 

Today, MapmyGenome works on building the genetic profile and build of an individual, which helps understand their susceptibility to different diseases and their prevention. In a conversation with YourStory Anu retraces her journey as a woman engineer and the various phases of technology she has witnessed, from her IIT-Kharagpur days to MapmyGenome.

Early days of coding 
Born in Bikaner, Rajasthan, to a physics professor, Anu spent most of her life in Kharagpur. This is where her love for science and technology took root. 

“I would hang out with my father in his physics lab and most of the people kept talking about science and technology. There was nothing else I could even think of. We didn’t have TVs or mobile phones; we only read and our birthday gifts were either books or a science kit,” Anu recalls. 
When it ws time for higher education, Anu chose IIT0Kharagpur in 1990. “Whatever coding I did or learnt was at IIT. The programs we learnt then were C and Pascal,” Anu says. But her first tryst with coding had happened way before, in high school.